Geordie showbiz kings Ant & Dec are furious over the renaming of St. James' Park - home of their beloved Newcastle United
Geordie showbiz kings Ant & Dec are furious over the renaming of St. James' Park - home of their beloved Newcastle United
Posted: 08 Oct 2009
The Geordie kings of entertainment Ant & Dec have slammed the renaming of St. James' Park -home of their beloved Newcastle United.
'The owner has got us relegated, lost us Keegan and Shearer and now he's taking away something that belongs to the people' said Dec. 'I find it so sad and frustrating. But to us and other fans it will always be St. James' Park.'
Britain's most successful TV duo are in Australia presenting I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and are celebrating 20 years in showbusiness together with a new book Ooh! What a Lovely Pair.
Profile by Michael Hamilton
Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly met at the age of 13 on the set of the hit BBC children’s drama, Byker Grove.
They didn’t warm to each other immediately but their characters, PJ and Duncan, were friends in the show and Ant & Dec soon became firm friends in real life.
The Newcastle lads became inseparable and at 18 pledged to be pals for ever as they sat in Dec’s MG Metro Turbo on the Quayside about to embark on their music career as PJ and Duncan.
In 20 years together they have never spent more than two weeks apart – and they even live just three doors from each other in West London.
The book charts their career as child actors, pop stars and TV presenters who have hosted a string of prime time shows including I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Saturday Night Takeaway and Britain’s Got Talent.
In 1993, the boys signed a record contract and over the course of four years notched up 14 Top 20 hits including Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble, Stepping Stone and Shout, not to mention three multi-platinum albums and a shelf full of awards. British, European, and then World tours followed until they called time on their music career in 1997.
But not before – as they reveal in their autobiography – they came to blows for the one and only time in 20 years together.
Ant says: ‘Whenever we meet new people they always ask us: “Have you two ever had a fight.”
It was in July 1995 at 3.30am in a lift in a Torremolinos hotel. The lads had been booked to appear on GMTV’s Fun in the Sun live from Spain with Anthea Turner. The day before the show they went on all-day bender in a local bar.
Dec decided to call it a day as dawn approached – the pair had to be up at 5am for the show – and marched off to bed.
Ant took exception and shouted: “Don’t you dare walk away from me when I’m talking to you.”
Dec put his hands in his ears and started going: “La, la, la, la, la, can’t hear you.”
Ant was furious and punched him in the chest.
Dec says: “I was stunned, but I pulled myself together and came back with a move Muhammed Ali would have been proud of as I tried to know Ant’s cap off. The problem was I was so drunk I only managed to catch the peak. The only injury Ant sustained was a slightly wonky cap.”
The boys got about an hour’s sleep then performed Stuck on You live on GMTV in the Spanish sun– both with raging hangovers.
Ant says: “I turned to Dec and said: ‘Thank god we’re still drunk. We both started to laugh, did the song and were mates again.’
In the book Ant also talks for the first time about his relationship with dad Raymond who left him and his mum Christine when he was just eight.
“I still remember meeting my dad again when he came to my 21st birthday. It was a surprise and I was really pleased that he was invited as it was the first time I’d seen him for a few years.
“He said he wasn’t there to cause a scene just to say Happy birthday and tell me he was very proud of me, which I appreciated.”
The Geordie boys also reveal how they felt “physically sick” when the telly phone vote scandal hit the headlines in 2007.
With TV viewers having been cheated out of their money the nation’s telly favourites risked losing it all. But they were relieved when the British public backed them when they picked up a National Television Award in 2007.
Ant says: “The audience knew we hadn’t betrayed them, we hadn’t been part of the phone-line ‘fixing’ and they still had faith in us.
“The whole thing – the reports, the fine, the mix-up – was a terrible time, and it reminded us how incredibly lucky we are to have the career we have.”
Alongside their music career the guys continued making TV shows including the BAFTA award winning Ant & Dec Show on BBC 1, before they moved to Channel 4 to make Ant & Dec Unzipped.
In Autumn 1998 their own company, Ant & Dec Productions, launched SM:TV Live and CD:UK, mixing music, comedy and cartoons, which were co-hosted by Cat Deeley. The show was a massive hit with audiences young and old, spawning the Friends parody Chums.
In 2002 the duo went on to present the first series of Pop Idol. They also returned to acting and filmed a special episode of one of Britain’s best loved sitcoms, A Tribute To The Likely Lads. In addition to this they re-wrote and recorded the official World Cup anthem for the England Football team, We’re On The Ball, which reached No. 3 in the UK single charts.
Later that year Ant & Dec returned to Saturday night TV when they launched a brand new prime-time ITV1 show – Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, where viewers were asked not to just watch the advert breaks, but also win them! Within a short space of time the boys were involved in the launch of yet another huge ITV programme I’m a Celebrity….Get Me Out Of Here.
Autumn 2005 saw the lads host Ant & Dec’s Gameshow Marathon as part of ITV1’s 50th birthday celebrations. They also formed a new production company, Gallowgate, which co-produced the hugely successful All-Star Cup for Sky One, a celebrity version of golf’s Ryder Cup, which featured among others, Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas.
Hollywood beckoned and Ant & Dec took time out from television to make their first feature film Alien Autopsy, which opened in April 2006. The film took well over £2 million at the box office and also hit No. 1 in the DVD/Video chart in its opening week.
Following the film Ant & Dec were asked to exclusively interview Princes Charles, William and Harry for the Anniversary celebrations of the Prince’s Trust. This interview went out in over 20 countries worldwide. May 2006 saw the boys present Soccer-Aid, where a celebrity and Legend England team (led by Robbie Williams) took on a Rest of the World Team (led by Gordon Ramsay) at a packed Old Trafford.
2006 saw Ant & Dec bring the All-Star Cup to ITV as well as devising and presenting the Saturday night smash Pokerface where the eventual winner took home £1 million!
June 2007 saw Ant and Dec reunite with Simon Cowell for the first time since Pop Idol with Britain’s Got Talent. The final episode attracted over 7 million viewers, all of whom tuned in to watch Ant & Dec declare amateur opera singer Paul Potts the undisputed winner of the series.
Britain’s Got Talent returned in April 2008, with Ant & Dec once again heading up the search for the weird and wonderful performers throughout the UK before crowning the winner George Sampson, a street dancer from Warrington. The final attracted a phenomenal 14.4 million viewers and remains one of the most watched shows of 2008.
* Ooh! What a Lovely Pair is published by Michael Joseph/Penguin £20
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